Is the Information Flow diagram part of the UML v2.5.1 taxonomy?

Question

According to multiple sources, the Information Flow diagram is not part of the UML v2.5.1 taxonomy.

See examples here:

• https://www.uml-diagrams.org/uml-25-diagrams.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/44715082/4216654

According to the UML v2.5.1 (and v2.5.0) specification, it seems that the Information Flow diagram is part of the UML v2.5.1 taxonomy, when in v2.4.1 it was an auxiliary package. Clause 20 of v2.5.1 describes everything about Information Flows. It's still described as a package but it doesn't talk about anything being auxiliary anymore.

It looks like this is something people missed in the transition from v2.4.1 to v2.5.0, but maybe I'm the one who missed something here.

If the Information Flow diagram is indeed part of the UML v2.5.1 taxonomy, it means that many comments, websites, books and software are wrong about it, so I would like to be extra sure about this point. It's likely that I'm wrong about this, so I would be glad to understand why.

I would appreciate any help about this.

Answer 1

No, Information Flow Diagrams don't exist in the UML specification. These are the diagram types defined in UML v2.5.1, found on page 685

Information Flows however are part of the UML metamodel and are described in detail in §20 starting page 669.

There is simply no dedicated diagram type defined to show Information Flows. You can show them on other diagrams however such as Class Diagram, Component Diagram, etc..